The top concern for nearly every student considering going to college is always, without fail, financial aid. Parents start saving for Joe College Student almost the second they are born just to make sure they have enough resources to make sure that their special child can make it through with as few lasting problems as possible. Well, it turns out that scholarships are handed out easier than many believe.
Schools like Princeton, while it’s rare to get in, offer tremendous amounts of financial aid to students no matter their need. There’s even a program at many schools that gives a full ride regardless of academics to students if their family’s financial problems are grave enough. But how do you know if your problems are bad enough? It turns out there are various ways to manipulate the system.
While there are plenty of ways to get the best financial aid possible legally, there are also some other ways of getting as much money as possible. For example, since divorced children get nearly twice as much financial aid, some parents will divorce on paper but still exist together as if nothing happened. They essentially get free money, and nothing’s sweeter. You can also hire financial aid consultants to fill out your FAFSA while knowing all the tricks to get as much money as possible. They know what to report, what not to and everything in between. You may not be sure of where all your money came from, but they do. They are the trick that can make or break many families’ financial situations during the college years.
However, while these may seem tempting,even the colleges in New Jersey like Rutgers and TCNJ who are undergoing budget slashes are still offering very good scholarships worth thousands of dollars. While the less legitimate ways will in fact get you a little money, the best way to get financial aid is to work as hard as possible to gain as much academic credit and accolades as possible. Academics trump illegitimacy every time. There are reasons hardly anyone goes down the illegal path whether they’ll get caught or not.
